The Legacy (45 page)

“Erica—”

“I want to know!”

“What if knowing changes everything? What if, for once, your sister and I are right and you’re better off not remembering?” Fierce eyes lock on mine.

“I
want
it to change everything! Change what, anyway? She’s my sister. I love her and I’ll love her no matter what she does. Or did,” I declare adamantly.

“I’m not just talking about Beth,” he says.

“Who, then? What then? Just tell me!”

“Don’t shout at me, Erica, I can hear you. I’m talking about . . . you and me.” His voice grows softer. I am silent for two heartbeats. They come quickly, but seem to take for ever.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . whatever this is . . . whatever it might have been, it would all change.” He looks away from me, folds his arms. “Do you understand?” he asks. I bite my lower lip, feel my eyes stinging. But then I see Beth, in the bath, as she was last night; whole in body, but slipping away. I swallow the hot little flame that Dinny has just lit inside me.

“Yes. But I have to know,” I whisper. My nose is running. I scrub it with the back of my hand. I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t. His eyes dart from the floor to the door to the stairs and back again, focusing on nothing. Knots in his jaw, tying themselves tighter. “Just tell me, Dinny! Beth and I ran off. I don’t know what happened, but I know we ran off and left you and Henry at the pond. And that was the last anybody saw of him and I want you to
tell me
!” My voice sounds odd, too high.

“Beth should—” he begins.

“Beth won’t. Oh, maybe she will, one day. Or maybe she’ll try to kill herself again, and this time she’ll manage it! I have to get this
out
of her!” I cry. Dinny stares at me, shocked.

“She tried to
kill
herself?” he breathes. “Because of this?”

“Yes! Because she’s depressed. Not just
unhappy
—ill, Dinny. And I want to know what caused it. If you don’t tell me then you’re just helping keep her like she is—haunted. Just tell me what you did with his body! Tell me where he is!” I plead. My blood is soaring like a tidal wave, roaring in my ears.

“Erica!” Beth’s shout echoes across the hallway. Dinny and I jump, like guilty children.
“Don’t!”
she cries, running down the stairs to us. Her eyes are wide, face marked with fright.

“Beth, I wasn’t going to tell her—” Dinny starts to say, holding up a hand to placate her.

“What? Why not—because
Beth
has told you not to?” I snap at him.

“Don’t tell anybody!
Ever!
” Beth says. I hardly recognize her voice. I grasp at her hands, try to make her look at me, but her eyes are fixed on Dinny’s and something passes between them that I can’t bear.

“Beth! Please—Beth, look at me! Look at what trying to keep this secret has done to you! Please, Beth. It’s time to get rid of it. Whatever it is, let it go. Please. For Eddie’s sake! He needs you to be happy—”

“Don’t bring Eddie into this!” she snaps at me, her eyes awash with tears.

“Why not? It’s
his
life that this is affecting too, you know! He’s your responsibility. You owe it to him to be strong, Beth—”

“What would
you
know about it, Erica? What would you know about responsibility? You haven’t even got a permanent job! You change flats every six months! You’ve been living like a student since you left home—you’ve never even had a pet so don’t tell me about
my
responsibilities!” Beth shouts, and I recoil, stung.

“You’re my responsibility,” I say quietly.

“No. I’m not,” Beth replies, holding my gaze.

“Beth,” Dinny says. “I’ve been trying to talk to you since you got back here and I know you don’t want to hear what I have to say, but it’s important, and . . . I think Erica has a right to hear it too—”

“She was
there,
Dinny! If she doesn’t remember then she doesn’t need to. Now can we please leave it alone? Dinny, I . . . I think you should go.”

“No, he shouldn’t! Why should he go? I asked him in. In fact,” I cross to the door, stand with my back to it, “nobody’s going until I have had the truth from one or both of you. I mean it. The truth. It’s long overdue,” I say. My heart trips, hurls itself against my ribs.

“Like you could stop me,” Dinny mutters.

“Erica, stop asking!” Beth cries. “Just . . .
stop asking
!”

“Beth, maybe it would be better to just tell her. She’s not going to tell anybody. It’s just the three of us. I think . . . I think she has a right to know,” Dinny says, his voice soft. Beth stares at him, her face so pale.

“No,” she whispers.

“
Christ!
I don’t know why you even came back here!” he shouts, throwing up his arms in exasperation.

“Dinny, tell me. It’s the only way to help her,” I say firmly. Beth’s gaze flickers from me to Dinny and back again.

“No!” she hisses.

“Please. Tell me where Henry is,” I urge him.

“Stop it!” Beth commands me. She is shaking uncontrollably. Dinny grinds his teeth together, looks over his shoulder, looks back at me. His eyes are ablaze. He seems torn over something, undecided. I hold my breath and my head spins in protest.

“Fine!” he barks, grabbing my arm. “If you think this is only way to help her. But if you’re wrong, and when everything is different, don’t say I didn’t warn you!” He is suddenly angry, furious with us. His fingers bruise me; he tows me away from the door and wrenches it open.

“No! Dinny—
no!
” Beth shouts after us, as he pulls me outside.

“
Ow
—stop it! What are you doing? Where are we going?” On instinct I fight him, try to dig my heels in, but he is far stronger than me.

“You want to know what happened to Henry? I’ll show you!” Dinny spits the words out. Fear grips my insides. I am so close to finding Henry, so close that it terrifies me. Dinny terrifies me. Such strength in him, in his grip; such an implacable look on his face.

“Dinny,
please
. . .” I gasp, but he ignores me.

“Erica!
No!
” I hear Beth’s ragged shout chasing us but she does not follow. I look back over my shoulder, see her framed in the doorway, mouth distorted, hands grasping the jamb for support.

Dinny marches me across the lawn, out of the garden through the trees, and I think we are going to the dew pond. Suddenly I know, for absolute sure, that I do not want to go there. Dread makes my knees weak; I renew my struggle to get free.

“Come on!” he snaps, pulling me harder. He could wrench my arm clean away from my body. But we are not going to the dew pond. He is heading west now. We are going to the camp. I follow him like a reluctant shadow, weaving and stumbling behind him. My heart pummels inside me. Dinny pulls open the door of the nearest van, not bothering to knock. Harry looks up, startled; smiles when he recognizes us. Dinny propels me up the steps into the van, which smells of crisps and dog and damp clothing.

“What the hell is this?” My voice is shaking, I can’t get my breath, I am ready to shatter.

“You wanted to know where Henry was.” Dinny raises his arm, points at Harry. “There’s Henry.”

I stare. My head empties, the plug is pulled. I’m not sure how long I stare, but when I speak my throat is dry.

“What?” The word is a feeble little thing, a faint shape around the last scrap of air in my chest. The floor is tipping underneath my feet; the earth has rolled off its axis, is wheeling away with me, dizzy and helpless. Dinny lowers his arm, shuts his eyes and puts a hand over them, wearily.

“That’s Henry,” he repeats; and again I hear the words.

“But . . . how
can
it be? Henry’s dead! How can this be Henry? Not
Henry
. Not him.”

“He’s not dead. He didn’t die.” Dinny drops his hand and the fire has gone out of him. He watches me but I can’t move. I can’t think. Harry smiles, uncertainly. “Try not to shout. It upsets him,” Dinny says quietly. I can’t shout. I can’t anything. I can’t breathe. Pressure is building inside my head. I worry that it will explode. I put my hands to my temples, try to hold my skull together. “Come on—let’s go. Let’s go outside and talk,” Dinny murmurs, taking my arm more gently now. I snatch it away and lean toward Harry. I am so scared as I look at him. Scared enough for my knees to sag—there’s a hollow thump as they hit the floor. Scared enough for a shocking nausea to sweep through me. I am chilled to the roots of my hair, and burning all over. I push stray dreadlocks back from Harry’s face, peer into his eyes. I try to see it. Try to recognize him, but I can’t. I won’t.

“You’re wrong. You’re lying!”

“I’m neither. Come on, we can’t talk about this here.” Dinny pulls me to my feet and takes me outside again.

For the second time in twelve hours I sit in Dinny’s van, shivering, stunned, stupid. He makes coffee on the stove in a battered steel pot, the liquid spitting and smelling delicious. Sipping from the cup he gives me scalds my mouth, and I feel it revive me.

“I . . . I can’t believe it. I don’t understand,” I say quietly. Outside a door bangs. Popeye and Blot woof gently behind their teeth; more a greeting than a warning. Dinny has one ankle propped up on the other knee, his familiar pose. He looks both hard and nervous. He sighs.

“What don’t you understand?” He says this quietly, in the spirit of genuine enquiry.

“Well, where has he
been
all these years? How come he was never found? They searched
everywhere
for him!”

“Nobody ever searches
everywhere.
” Dinny shakes his head. “He’s been here, with us. With my family, or with friends of my family. There’s more than one traveller camp in the south of England. Mum and Dad had plenty of friends to leave him with, friends who looked after him, until it had blown over. As soon as I was old enough to keep an eye on him myself, I did.”

“But . . . I saw him bleeding. I saw him fall into the pond . . .”

“And then you two ran away. I fished him out and I fetched my dad. He wasn’t breathing, but Dad managed to get it going again. The cut on his head wasn’t as bad as it looked . . . head wounds just bleed a lot.” He looks at his boot, twists the frayed end of a lace between his finger and thumb.

“And then? Didn’t you take him to the hospital? Why didn’t you come and find somebody at the manor?” I ask. Twenty-three years of my life are rewriting themselves behind my eyes, unravelling like wool. I can hardly focus, hardly think. Dinny doesn’t answer for a long time. He grips his chin in his hand, knuckles white. His eyes burn into me.

“I . . . wouldn’t say what had happened. I wouldn’t tell them how he’d got hurt . . . or by who. So Dad . . . Dad thought it was me. He thought Henry and me had got into a fight or something. He was trying to protect me.”

“But, you could have told them it was an accident—”

“Come off it, Erica. Everyone’s always looking to be proved right about us—all my life, people have looked to be proved right. That we thieve, that we’re criminals—that we’re scum. The social would have leapt at the chance to take me away from Mum and Dad. A spell in juvy, then a
proper
home, with a
proper
family . . .”

“You don’t know that . . .”

“Yes. Yes, I do. It’s you who doesn’t know, Erica.”

“Why is he . . . the way he is?”

“Not from the knock on the head, that’s for sure. Dad took him to an old friend, Joanna, who used to be a nurse in Marlborough. This was that same afternoon, before anyone even knew he was missing. She put a couple of stitches in his head, said he might have a concussion but it was nothing to worry about. We were going to wait for him to wake up, make sure he was OK, then drop him within walking distance of the village and disappear. That was the plan. Joanna looked after him for the first few days. He was out of it for two days straight and . . . then he woke up.”

“You could have brought him back then. You could have left him somewhere he’d be found, like you said. Why didn’t you?”

“By then the search was enormous. We were being watched. We couldn’t move without some keen copper noting it down. Henry would have told them we’d had him—when he was found, of course. But we thought we’d have a head start to vanish. By the time we realized there was no way we could bring him back without being seen, it was too late. And he wasn’t right, when he woke up. Anybody could tell that. Dad took me to see him, since I knew him best, out of all of us.
Just tell me what you think
, Dad said. I didn’t know what he was getting at until I saw Henry and spoke to him. Sitting up in Joanna’s spare bed, holding a glass of orange squash like he didn’t know what to do with it. I’d rather have been anywhere else in the world than in that room with him.” Dinny pushes his fingers through his hair, grips his scalp. “I tried talking to him, like Dad said I should. But he wasn’t the same. He was wide awake, but . . . distant. Dazed.”